Posts Tagged ‘Mother Teresa’

I was in Kolkata for three days last week doing as much sightseeing as physically possible in the heat. There’s a lot of interesting things to do and the one line metro is a great help for getting around. It’s so much nicer than Delhi. Less hasslers nagging you and pretending to be your friend and you can even walk from place to place because there are street signs! (If you can withstand the sweating)

Jealous? You shouldn't be

On Tuesday I went to The Indian Museum of Kolkata, an old-school museum that is kind of like a small version of London’s Natural History Museum. There are a few rooms of interest, I enjoyed the old coins and the deformed human embryo.

The pickled baby of Kolkata

After an hour there I went to the amazing Victoria Memorial (but not inside, it is far too expensive) which is the kind of building we should have more of in Britain. Then I just strolled around the Chowringhee area in general trying to get my battered Lonely Planet guide re-binded to no avail.

Vicki's Memorial in full bloom

Half of Wednesday was taken up in an Indian post office to my frustration. The Indian postal system is one of the most bureaucratic organisations I have ever known. I arrived with my parcel for the lucky birthday boys and girls and the rest of the rabble back in London, nicely wrapped with strong parcel tape and with a clear label with a white background. The Royal Mail would have thought I’d put far too much effort in. This wasn’t good enough for the red tape jobsworths at Mirza Ghalib St Post Office. I needed to get it all sewn up in cotton, photocopy my own postal form and then paste and sew that form on different sides of the parcel. When I came to pay after an hour and a half of pandering to their petty demands they said come back tomorrow. For it was 4.10pm and they stop dealing with parcels at 4pm. aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!

What a waste of time.

After that hassle I needed some tranquil time off so I headed to Mother Teresa’s house and illegally took some snaps of her possessions.

Mother's last passport

It was there that I met Ryan (an Australian) and Anya (from Belgium) they’d been travelling together for the last two days since they met on a plane and arrived in India. I told them about my plans to go and relax in the air con sanctuary of the Birla Plantarium. They joined in on the plot to cool down and afterwards we went for an amazing Bengali feast at Bhojohari Manna that place definitely deserves its reputation as one of the best eateries in town. Succulent fish, massive prawns the size of lobsters and well defined flavours in the veg dishes. The ice cream was also a winner with Anya getting two helpings.

Bored of working in London and living for the weekend to see his amazing 18 friends. Myles decided to fulfil a lifelong passion and go travelling. The only problem was he didn’t have any money to go. One phone call later to his lovely bank Nationwide on a dreary Tuesday ... Continue reading →